


Slides

by scarletfever



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Episode: s02e21 All Hell Breaks Loose, Gen, Wincest - Freeform, Wincest if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2013-10-28
Packaged: 2017-12-30 18:50:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1022176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletfever/pseuds/scarletfever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean began to desperately repeat his brother’s name, begging him to stay, to not trip into the light of death. But life is slippery, and sometimes you have no choice but to slide down.</p>
<p>Season 2 episode 21, a tag to Sam's death scene. Lots of good ol' angst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slides

Everything slowed down. He could see the trees sway in the wind a little less, the grass’s shimmering a little clearer, his brother’s strides a little longer; as if the entire world was rapidly stilling to mimic a photograph.

One thing, or person as it was, kept his pace despite it all. What was his name – Jack, Jake? – he supposed it didn’t matter. The guy didn’t so much as skip a step as he got closer and closer to his wounded brother. He blinked once, not understanding why the flickering scene before him struck a wild panic through his veins.

Jack-Jake’s knife glinted in the moonlight, and comprehension took his breath away.

“Sam! Look out!” His voice was jagged as it tore through his clenching chest, and it burned its way through his throat like a blistering fire.

He was too late. The knife slid soundlessly through his brother’s spine, the boy’s gasp echoed throughout the woods. _He was too late._

His brother straightened with wide, shocked eyes before beginning to sway dangerously. Left, right…more left, more right; and just before he would slam into the cold forest floor, he was caught in his brother’s arms.

Together, they fell to their knees.

Sam continued to make this awful, grisly gasping sound as his lungs fell from his control. His knees were useless beneath him, but that didn’t matter. His brother had him. His brother was always there when he hit the ground.

_That’s nice,_ Sam realized in a fog. He wished that he still had his voice. He wanted to say thank you for everything. He wanted to say that he was sorry for not being more careful. He wanted to say that he loved his brother, and knew what he had sacrificed for him.

From far away, he heard his brother’s voice frantically buzz near his ear. If he strained, he could catch the words. “Look at me.”

_What a difficult thing to ask,_ Sam thought with a bit of insult. Merely seeing at all was proving to be a challenge.

“It’s not even that bad. It’s not even that bad, alright? Sammy? Sam? Hey! Listen to me…”

Sam’s brain was shutting down. He didn’t hear the fear and desperation in his brother’s voice. His mind hummed contentedly, and like a child, he believed him. He was going to be okay, Dean would fix him. Dean always fixed him.

“We’re going to patch you up, okay? You’ll be good as new. Huh? I’m going to take care of you, I’m going to take care of you; I’ve got you, that’s my job, right? Watch after my pain-in-the-ass little brother.”

_Take care of me._ If he could have smiled, he would’ve. How nice. What a wonderful brother he had.

And that was the last thought he ever had in this life.

Dean began to desperately repeat his brother’s name, begging him to stay, to not trip into the light of death. But life is slippery, and sometimes you have no choice but to slide down.

Sammy Winchester didn’t really have a choice when that knife slithered hatefully into his back. His brother knew this, but when had his brother ever accepted reality? How could he, when everyday he tackled and killed the world beyond imagination?

Dean made false promises to the shell of his brother he clutched in his arms. He tried to hold him up, tried to be the spine that had so effortlessly been sliced in two.

It wasn’t enough. It never could have been.

He didn’t notice that his breaths came twice as fast, as if his body was attempting to breathe for them both. He didn’t notice that his heartbeat had tripled and his lungs had condensed to ice. He didn’t notice that his will to carry on was draining just as fast as the blood from his brother’s back.

He felt the quivering, sweaty skin finally lose its spark of life. He felt his only family go limp against him. He felt that last bit of air slither from his lungs and heard it whisper that he had failed. The shaggy-haired boy’s head lolled against his own, the touch a cruel reminder of how he had once rocked him to sleep.

He knew then that Sam was most surely dead.

“Sam? Sam? Sammy?! No. No, no, no, no. Oh no come on. Oh God.”

He made his decision long before he had even weighed his options. Sam was his responsibility, and Sam came first, _always_. He was Sam’s protector, and had been ever since the baby was shoved into his arms while their home exploded in flames. He was Sam’s dad when no one else stepped up to claim the role, and damn him should he fail at his most sacred task.

_Damn me,_ he laughed humorlessly, _What an idea._

The world looked at the scene in silence, neither the demons nor angels believing that one of _Winchester boys_ had died. Death could not fathom it, the boy’s unfulfilled destiny a cold ache in his ancient chest. No reaper had yet the courage to whisk away the soul to Heaven or Hell or wherever they’d take the good boy with bad blood. Everyone was too enraptured or too afraid of the man who had him curled within his arms.

People say that it was then that Dean finally lost his innocence. He survived a lot in his lifetime: witnessing the massacre of his mother as she burned on the ceiling of his brother’s nursery, the loss of his sense of security that accompanied his study of all-things evil, the disappearance and eventual death of his father…but, he had always somehow managed to spring back with a witty retort on his tongue. Someone, even after all this horror and hellish lifestyle, he could still find something to laugh and joke about, something to make him roll out of bed in the morning. Somehow, Dean managed to _survive_.

Survival requires a purpose, and Dean’s purpose was family. Maybe family became the constant in his life that he needed, that he desperately depended on.

But what on this god-forsaken earth is he supposed to do when all that remains of it is leaning lifelessly against his breaking heart?

What is he supposed to do?

What else could he do?

_“Sam!”_ tore itself from his splintered chest, so much pain in the lonely syllable.

For a moment, both Heaven and Hell were speechless.


End file.
